inisraelincludingan israeli soldier who died in a rocket strike today. we want to get more from nbc correspondent, ayman mohyeldin, who joins me from gaza. you reached out to the egyptian authorities about what's taking place, when this deal will be announced. what are you hearing about the possibility of that happening this hour? >> well, right now what we're hearing from egyptian officials is that they're still working to finalize that agreement. there are some areas where the gap between the two sides has been narrowed, but there are still some very important issues that have not been addressed. you know, we are talking about trying to solve one of the most complex issues here in gaza. that has to be do with the blockade. there's no indication that israel will try to do that any time soon. they want to try to divide or break up the truce into different stages. first, an immediate cessation of violence on both sides. that could pave the way for talking about some of the more complex issues that both sides want to address. right now, it doesn't seem they're going to go for all of t

palestinian factions engaged in this military operationwithisrael. they'retrying to get them to commit to a cessation of hostility force a period of 48 hours to allow for a longer truce to go into effect. the palestinians feel they have the upper hand here, and they are saying they will not stop their attacks into southern israel so long as israel maintains a siege on gaza. they want it lifted and they want guaranteed backed by the international community that israel will no longer engage and target and kill senior leaders of the palestinian factions here in gaza. they want all of these demands guaranteed by the international community. for its part israel wants to approach it from a different angle. they want a complete cessation of hostilities for 38 hours for so followed by a -- other concerns they have. the challenge for egypt is to try and close that gap as quickly as possible because essentially everyone here feels that they're running out of time. you have the israelis amassed on the border and palestinian factions still firing rockets and caught in the middle are the 19.6 milli